● nature ● wildlife ● conservation ● sustainability ●

paris agreement

I had a really enjoyable #30DaysWild and hope you all did too! I continued to complete my random acts of wildness during the final ten days of June… and here is what I did:

21. It was another hot day, so I took a stroll during my lunch break to have a look at the large pond on the park near my workplace. I had not explored the pond for many years, so it was interesting to see how much it had changed. There are now large amounts of aquatic plants and due to the heat on the day, hundreds of beautiful damselflies! I was also happy to see a family of moorhens swimming around.

22. Having always welcomed in the solstices and equinoxes, I chose to do an outdoor Sun Salutation for midsummer.

23. The heatwave came to an end, so it was a rather overcast day. Despite this, I watched the evening sky and focused on the subtle movement of the clouds and gradual change in colour. This act of wildness brought back memories and inspiration from my university days studying Fine Art. Feel free to have a look at my archive blog of experimentation and creation which I created during my degree.

24. It was my mother’s birthday, so my family and I went to her house for afternoon tea. We each took a homemade cake and enjoyed the afternoon out in the garden. My random act of wildness was taking lots of photographs of the plants and flowers in her garden.

25. My boyfriend and I went to an open day at Holwell Reserves, a LRWT nature reserve. It was a lovely location and despite a spot of rain, also a lovely day. On the drive home, we stopped off at Cossington Meadows – another LRWT reserve that we had never visited before.

26. During my lunchtime walk around Welford Road Cemetery, I spotted a grounded bumblebee. It was a very large bee and was clearly tired and struggling to walk, let alone fly. After a few attempts I managed to get it to climb on to the lid of my lunchbox (by lining it with dry grass for it to grip to) and gently placed it on some flowers. It instantly began to get nectar and was soon a lot more energetic! Here are some tips on how you can help bees at this time of year.

27. I had a surprising act of wildness on the 27th – I was walking through my local park (again) and suddenly heard loud chirping. I looked up to see a brilliant nest box in a tree, so continued to listen to the many chicks inside. I am not yet attuned to identifying chick chirps though, so couldn’t tell what they were… maybe one day I will be able to!?

28. I read a very interesting summary report about the Paris Agreement and 450 Scenario by the International Energy Agency. There are several other publications on their website which you can download here.

30. As I spent the day travelling to Brugge, I utilised my time well by doing a bit of bird spotting whilst waiting at several train stations. At one point, I saw what I believed to be a pair of goldfinches gripping onto and pecking at a stone wall – strange behaviour that I had not seen before (especially from goldfinches). I have since found out that seed eating birds do in fact sometimes eat mortar from walls for the grit it contains to help with digestion. Awesome!

Now that this year’s #30DaysWild challenge is complete, it is important that we continue to #StayWild. I certainly did in Brugge (hence the delay in blogging about my final ten days)… and one of my favourite wild things I did there was spot and photograph several red-tailed bumblebees – a species I had not seen up-close before!